In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that corporations, associations, unions and nonprofit groups could make unlimited independent expenditures. At the time 25 states had bans or limits on such corporate and/or union expenditures. Eliminating these bans provides a quasi-experimental research opportunity to investigate the impact of altering the rules, made possible by the recent collection of independent spending data for 2006-2010 by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Our findings tend not to support some key claims being made on both sides of the contemporary political debate. First, contrary to statements made by some of the decision’s critics, Citizens’ United did not have a noticeable direct effect on independent spending in 2010 – although this could, of course, change. We also address the claim that limiting contributions to the political parties has displaced party money, increasing independent spending by unaccountable non-party organizations. We find that the displacement so far has been not been toward ideological or umbrella groups, but toward national organizations of state elected and party officials. This paper presents an expanded analysis of the data used in an earlier version written for APSA.